Bedtime Stories
Title: Bedtime Stories
Author: peigurrrl
Pairing: Taemin/Key
Rating: PG-15
Genre: Humor
Summary: In which Onew is deceased, Jonghyun is incompetent, Minho is spineless, and all of them are irrelevant except for Key and Taemin.
Disclaimer: More than belonging to SM, the members of SHINee belong to themselves. So in a way, I could possibly be sued for slander and libel, as well.
==
Once upon a time, there was a tiny little family of four that lived on the outskirts of a large forest. There was the dad, who was a woodcutter, and the stepmother who was a witch with a capital 'B', because everyone knows real mothers would never mistreat their children. So. Finally there was the two children, a little boy named Taemin and another little boy named Kibum. This family was not particularly wealthy- in fact, they were downright destitute when you were really honest, and when a great famine passed through the country, the woodcutter found himself unable to feed his family. He knew he should have listened to his dad about studying instead of playing soccer all day, but the past was past.
One night, the woodcutter found himself unable to sleep and tossed and turned until his wife snapped at him, “What's the matter with you?”
With a mournful sigh, the woodcutter replied, “Well, I'm hungry, aren't you? We're all going to starve to death at this rate. I have nothing to feed you or the kids with, what's to become of us?”
“Early tomorrow morning,” answered the woman, who hated the kids as was natural to the character of any fairy tale stepmother, “we will take Taemin and Kibum out into the thickest part of the woods. We'll light a fire for them, just to ward off any bears that might try to eat them, give each of them some bread, and abandon them. They'll die pretty quickly when they can't find a way home.”
“I can't do that, Heechul!” said her husband. “Just because you hate my kids doesn't mean I could just leave them to die in the woods. They're my kids, in case you hadn't noticed.”
“Actually, I think Taemin looks rather like me, but Kibum doesn't. So I don't mind Taemin but he's just sooooo attached to his hyung. We might as well get rid of both of them unless you want all four of us to die?” And she nagged and nagged until the poor woodcutter acquiesced.
“Still, aren't we just prolonging our own suffering?” wondered the husband before his wife distracted him in very adult ways.
The children, too, had not been able to sleep for hunger and they overheard what their stepmother and father had said. Kibum was torn between crying for the trauma the sounds were giving his innocent twelve-year-old mind, and leaping at his stepmother with an axe but little ten-year-old Taemin whispered, “Don't fret, hyung. I'll take care of us.”
Eyes shining, Kibum turned towards his little brother and proclaimed as loudly as anyone could proclaim in a whisper-voice, “Omo, my Taeminnie! Hyung will take care of you too!” And promptly covered Taemin's ears with his hands.
When the old people had fallen asleep at last, Taemin got up, slipped on his shoes, opened the back door and crept out. The moon was big in the sky, so the white pebbles in front of the house were very easy to see. Taemin collected as many of the rocks as he could then went back to Kibum and said, “It'll be all good, hyung. I gots sparkly rocks.” Then he lay down to sleep while Kibum blinked, wondering what good rocks would be unless Taemin intended to stone their stepmother to death.
At daybreak the next day, even before the sun was fully up, the woman came and woke the two children. “Up, up with you, small children! We're going into the forest to gather wood.”
“Why bring us today when you never have before?” Kibum grumbled, as he slowly prodded Taemin into full wakefulness like the doting older brother he was.
“Simply because!” She then gave them each a bit of bread and said, “Be glad you kids don't go to school, or else you'd be laughed at for having such a sorry lunch. Don't eat it until lunch though, we're too poor to feed you anything more.”
Kibum put the bread in his pocket, since Taemin's were full of rocks. The cheerful little family then set out together on the way to the forest. Taemin, being the smart little boy he was, dropped the rocks all the way along, leaving a glittery white trail of rocks to follow back, in case their parents managed to actually abandon them.
Which they didn't because Kibum essentially stalked his father and stepmother, claiming he wanted to help them gather wood, even if it basically was child endangerment so Heechul gritted his teeth and grinned and at the end of the day, everyone walked home as one big happy family, a sleepy Taemin on Kibum's back. The rocks turned out to be unnecessary, this time.
Not long afterward, there was another famine in the country- it was clearly run by someone woefully inadequate- but anyhow, the children were eavesdropping on their parents again and heard their step mother convincing their father to try and abandon them in the forest again. Kibum seriously considered beheading the woman and transplanting her spine into their father.
However, murder of one's parents was generally not condoned in most societies, or as Taemin put it, “But they're our umma and appa, hyung!” with great big eyes and a wobbly lip, so Kibum didn't carry through with his bloodthirsty thoughts of homicide. Instead he hugged Taemin close when the boy didn't manage to go outside and collect rocks thanks to the door being barred closed by Heechul (not that it'd been done out of purposeful malicious intent, there'd just been rumors of a rabid bear running around recently).
“Hyung will figure something out, Taeminnie,” he had cooed to his little brother, reassuring the younger even though he was personally doubtful himself.
The next morning, early as last time, the woman woke up the children and gave them both bread that was even smaller than last time. Kibum was at a loss and all he could do was clutch Taemin's little hand tightly in his as they trudged through the woods after their parents. Once they had gone deep enough, Kibum attempted to follow his parents once more so they wouldn't be abandoned, but unfortunately, couldn't.
So they sat there and glumly nibbled at their narcotic-laced bread, thinking only that if the rabid bear got them, then hopefully it'd be a quick end. And then they fell sound asleep, Kibum protectively cradling Taemin even in unconsciousness.
--
The next morning came and went and by the time Taemin and Kibum woke up, they were both starving enough to eat a rabid bear. Not that they encountered one, nor anything truly edible really until they came across a little white bird that Taemin wanted as a pet and Kibum wanted as lunch. Chasing the bird, the pair ended up in front of a little cottage that seemed to be made of gingerbread and other such sweets.
“Oooh, tasty,” Taemin said, reaching out to eat a piece of the house. Kibum promptly stopped his little brother, being the older and responsible one.
“Taemin-ah, you can't just put whatever you come across in the forest into your mouth! It could be dirty! It could be drugged! And what good is a full stomach when you're dying of salmonella, huh?”
“Um. My tummy won't hurt?” Taemin queried softly, gazing up at his older brother with adoring, begging eyes to please, please, please let him eat the candy house. Well, he'd never been able to deny Taemin anything and it seemed he wasn't going to be able to either, anytime soon. It was with no small amount of trepidation, though, that Kibum warily broke off a licorice lattice to chew on while Taemin happily sat on the grass, stuffing his face with sweets.
Suddenly, a shrill voice called out:
Nibble, nibble, little mouse,
Who is nibbling at my house?
The children answered:
'Tis Heaven's own child,
The tempest wild,
and went on eating even though their answer made no sense, with little concern as to how the owner of the house might feel about how insurance didn't cover property damage resulting from hungry children. Suddenly, the door opened and an old woman on a staff hobbled out. Kibum immediately dropped the candy in his hands and pulled Taemin behind him, determined to protect his little brother's safety at all costs. But the old woman shook her head and said, “Hello little children! Why don't you come in and have some fresh food instead of the day-old stuff I decorate with?” Against Kibum's better judgment, he allowed himself and Taemin to be led into the house where they were treated to a fantastically unhealthy supper consisting of banana milk, sugared pancakes, pears, apples, and nuts.
“This is all very nice and I appreciate the fruit you've included in our meal, but Taemin is still growing and needs a balanced diet. Might I suggest you stock up on vegetables and fish? They'll be good for you too, granny,” Kibum said, very seriously as he wiped powdered sugar off of Taemin's chubby cheeks.
The old woman, who was really an old witch (this time with a lowercase 'w') with bad eyesight, misliked being lectured by a prepubescent boy and was sorely tempted to cook him then and there, but honestly, famine had turned both boys into little more than bones and skin and the witch was much more inclined to fattier meats. It was perhaps the reason she was so blind and had had a triple heart bypass in the last two years but damn if she was going to listen to her doctor. Small children were delicious, the man just did not know. And now, she had two of them. It was all she could do to not cackle evilly like the villain she was.
The morning came to see one chubby-cheeked but overall painfully thin Taemin in a little cage and Kibum trying to claw the witch's eyes out.
“Oh, so you want to eat my precious little Taeminnie? Woman, I will break you in half!” Kibum shrieked as his pointy little limbs rained blows upon the old woman who, after one particularly painful blow, threw her back as she fell to the floor, because that was what happened when you didn't get enough calcium to counteract the effects of osteoporosis. Her hip shattered rather painfully and Kibum beat her dead with her own staff, fuck elderly persons abuse laws.
Taemin slept soundly the entire time.
Looting the witch's corpse for the key to the cage, Kibum found it and rescued his little brother with a big smile and a shower of kisses on the mushroom hair style. “Taeminnie, you keep sleeping tight in this bed here while I dispose of this nasty corpse, okay?”
A softly mumbled, “Yes hyung,” made Kibum want to squeal and cuddle Taemin eternally, but he had a cadaver to deal with, so he quickly dragged her body outside, poured water on it to make it melt, and then nabbed the bird that had led him and Taemin to the cottage with plans of eating poultry for dinner, which they hadn't had since their real mother died.
Then, Kibum searched around the house, found enough in jewels and precious items to last himself and Taemin for a good long time, and proceeded to tuck himself in next to his precious little brother with a happy little sigh, glad that he had done good in the world.
The end.
--
“What the hell? How come the rest of us weren't in the story?” Jonghyun complained as Key finished his retelling of Hansel and Gretel.
Taemin grinned from his position on the bed, with his head in Key's lap, and replied, “Yes you guys were. Jonghyun-hyung was the king who ran the country into the ground, Jinki-hyung was the real mother, and Minho-hyung was the woodcutter!”
“Aigoo, my Taeminnie is so smart!” gushed Key as he pinched Taemin's cheeks enthusiastically. “And now it's bed time for my baby, yes? Okaaaay~!” Shooing everybody out of the room, Key tucked in the quickly falling asleep maknae with a quick kiss to the forehead, feeling a wide grin split his face nearly in half when a softly murmured 'good night Kibum-hyung' left sleepy lips.
The last thing he heard, as he crawled into his bed beside Taemin's, pulling the covers up, was Jonghyun asking, “Do you guys think I'd really ruin a country if I was king?"
==
A/N: This is me, making sure my readers do have fun while waiting for the next chapter, which I can't justify writing until I finish the important things in life, like academics and wanting to pull out all of my hair. It's not the usual TaeKey, I know, but gosh, aren't they cute like this? No? Go play in traffic.